GROWING use of legal highs in a North Yorkshire town is starting to cause a strain on local services.

Scarborough has been described in a report as an area of high risk for users of legal highs, due to the increased usage of new psychoactive substances, or NPS, and their availability.

Senior police and local authority representatives met this week to discuss the problem of tackling the sale and use of NPS in North Yorkshire.

They are currently sold in shops around the region, including in York, with customers advised they are not for human consumption.

However, the effects of the brightly-packaged substances are similar to those of heroin and other hard drugs, and many use them as a cheaper alternative.

On Monday, a report presented to senior police officers and Police and Crime Commissioner Julia Mulligan, at the Corporate Performance, Delivery and Scrutiny Board, said Scarborough was a high risk region for users.

Elsewhere, Selby was described as being at low risk, and the meeting heard work was being done in York by the council, police and partner agencies, but the information was not presented.

The meeting heard some users were "double dosing", using the 'legal highs' alongside their prescription drugs, or using them instead of their prescriptions.

The report said: "The difficulty is they do not know what they are dealing with.

"Some of the older adult drug-users are starting to experiment with NPS which brings its own dangers as these are people who have previously been stable on opiate substances for a significant time and are now introducing chemical compounds to them and that is causing some significant danger and demand on medical services."

The meeting also heard there had been some instances where users had been badly burned by injecting themselves with NPS, and staff at needle exchanges around the region would be made aware of how best to advise their clients.

Proposed legislation will be introduced in April to clamp down on NPS use, but the meeting heard its current wording would not prohibit possession of the substances, and more work was needed to protect the public. Similar legislation in Ireland had led to a fall in visits by young people to A&E due to NPS use, but usage continued to rise even after so-called 'head shops' were closed down.

Police and Crime Commissioner Julia Mulligan said she would lobby MPs across North Yorkshire to improve and back new legislation which would increase local powers to close down 'head shops' which sell NPS.